It was a cold dark night and, well, you know what I’m going to say…
The turnout for the sale was not as good as years past, but there were visitors from other clubs and one from Somerset who combined his visit with other business. Waiting for buyers were eight tables loaded with goodies: Rigs, Power supplies, even linear amps. As usual, the auctioneers were Don, G4LOO and David, G8UOD while Owen, G0PHY collected the payments. By the end of the sale many items had been purchased but also leaving many for next time.

Our annual club quiz night provided by David, G8UOD was very interesting. Four categories, completely different from the last quiz proved to be very challenging. In the end there was a tie between the “Three DXers” comprising Victor G3JNB, Graham G4JBD and Ian G3ORG and the “3 Kings” consisting of Owen, G0PHY, Paul, G1GSN and Ken, G4YRF.  A tie breaker followed which seemed to be easy but proved to be otherwise: the answer was not a famous person but Mickey Mouse, and it was Owen who got it!

The winning team had their pick from a bottle of Red or White wine, a bag of chocolates or boxed Short Bread. Then everyone else had their choice as well, so there were no losers for the prizes.  David was applauded for providing another challenging quiz!

This evening’s talk was presented by Ron White G6LTT representing Hertfordshire and North and East London, along with Terry Baldwin G4UEM, the District Rep for Herts. and Beds.

Terry began by describing the volunteer leadership team as: The RSGB Board of Directors, General Managers and senior staff members, followed by thirteen elected Regional representatives whose prime role is representing the Society and its members in its 13 regions. Lastly, listed were the Chairs of the RSGB Committees and special Honorary Officers.

The Volunteer Leadership Team (VLT) was established in 2018 and comprises leading volunteers and key HQ staff member totalling sixty members.

The Board of Directors totals twelve members, all radio amateurs. Next to be described were the Honorary Officers comprising managers and advisors totalling ten.  Next to be listed were the Committees comprising The Regional Forum, ARDF committee, Contest support Cmte, EMC Cmte. Etc. totalling 16 in all.  Finally, listed were the seven Members of Staff.

Terry went on to explain the duties of the Regional Reps and the District reps. all of which are to support members and the Society.

A lively question and answer session followed the presentation.

Shown on the new large screen, the video tonight as chosen by the members who attended was the YouTube video from the 2022 RSGB Tonight @ 8 series titled 100 years of BBC Technology and Innovation by David Palmer G7URP.

David explained that there were many innovations and he would only cover the highlight. He said he would concentrate mainly on Radio, TV and Digital including online products.

Early after the invention of radio, there were radio broadcasters, mainly Radio Amateurs transmitting experimental from their homes. The group known as the London wireless club went on to be the Radio Society of Great Britain or RSGB and predated the BBC by some nine years. David explained that the BBC teamed up with the Marconi company to do their broadcast. David also detailed the development of new equipment for transmitting and recording.

Next on the scene was the sending pictures by wireless: Television, and later video recording, computers, and digital, both transmissions and over the internet. In all the talk was very comprehensive.

If you would like to see the presentation click play!

Graham’s talk described a versatile multi-band HF antenna which doesn’t need an ATU and which is efficient and can be used on any or all of the HF bands. It was originally designed by W6RCA and further developed by W5DXP *.

He explained that it relies on the simple notion that the impedance at the end of a length of 450 Ohm ladder line depends on the length of the line, when used with a dipole which is a 1/2 wavelength or longer on the band of interest.

Graham demonstrated how you can simply add or remove sections of 450 Ohm line to ensure that a 50 Ohm impedance exists at the connection end, for any band.

Graham’s live demo used a 1:10 scale model of an 80m inverted vee dipole, fed with 450 Ohm ladder line.

He connected that to a length of 50 Ohm coax, through a 1:1 balun or current choke.

Graham demonstrated how the SWR dips could be moved up or down in frequency, by placing shorter or longer lengths of 450 Ohm feeder in the line.

Graham also demonstrated that the extra length of feeder can be conveniently coiled for compactness, with little effect on its operation at the frequency of interest.

This was demonstrated on the projector using a RigExpert antenna analyser and AntScope graphing software.

At the end of the talk, Graham also briefly introduced the 1/2 wave controlled-feeder-radiation vertical dipole, which he recently made and installed for Victor G3JNB for use on 10m, so that Victor could benefit from the excellent propagation we are currently enjoying on that band.  The CFR vertical needs no radials, so is ideal where you want an antenna with little visual impact and good DX performance, which were Victor’s key requirements.  The antenna is also known as the flower pot antenna and VK1NAM wrote an article on his experience with it #.

* [ The W5DXP Antenna – Details ]
# [ Controlled-Feeder-Radiation dipole ]